that is plain stupid of Washburn to drop Idol series... who or whatever their (lack there of) business plan is, its like Fender dropping the Stratocaster or telecaster from their product line up, or Gibson dropping Les Paul or SG from their product... I guess Washburn want to keep one expensive electric and mostly cheaper guitars... sad.

They seem to be doing okay with the Jazz & Hollowbody series, though I to have heard of quality issues pushing longtime fans away.

That leaves four solidbody lines, with the Sonamaster being downmarket Nunos (though a sight better than the el cheapo N1 & Signature). That leaves the XM & Parallaxe, both apparently aimed at shredheads despite even the widdly-widdly players I know starting to say "shred is dead" because musicality is becoming more interesting than mere blazing solos. The XM seems nice enough but could just as easily have been a Cort or Ibanez or Schecter or whatever. The PXL line seems intended for Scandinavian death-metal.

Not everyone wants to looks like just another speed-metal teenager.

Instead of one Parallaxe after another, I'd hoped the new owners of Washburn would've gone back & cherrypicked a few models from (say) MG, BT, X, & WI, & gone seeking after endorsements & media exposure -- wow, remember the catalogues from the '90s & all the celebrity endorsers they used to have??

IMO, the BT series was poorly marketed, & the X series was dragged down by the glut of X-10. At their peak, the Idols offered a nice range, IMO competing nicely with Epiphone LPs & SGs yet possessing unique touches, & the Tele-style WI-36 was an ingenious twist -- if they'd also done an s-s-s, it could've been an "evergreen" line.

When the spalt-top Idols appeared, I hoped this was a sign they were about to reinvigorate the "original Idol" line, but... alas.

I think the WI64 could have had 2 options: the VCC voice contour control system guitar and the other version with different wiring configuration. Not everyone liked the VCC, so the 4 knobs could have been. Volume, volume, master tone, blend/coil-split.. the WI64DL was nicely made with the gold hardware... they could have made it SSS, or HSH, or HS, or H with P90..

w00p, new idols! Please make it the old idol with the offset body, it's a unique guitar with interesting aesthetics, the single cut one is just a les paul clone and there's plenty of those to go around.